Ramola opens the door to the first floor and leads Natalie by the hand.
Standing within the ground-floor elevator vestibule is an EMT, the name of his ambulance service written in script across the chest of his white button-down shirt and the company crest patch on his right shoulder. He’s a lanky man, built like a puppet with extra joints and hinges in his limbs, with shaggy brown hair and facial features crowded together but not in a wholly displeasing way. Looking at Natalie and Ramola but shouting into his lapel radio, “This is her? The pregnant one, right?” and then he looks past Ramola and says, “Hey, are you Natalie?” sounding more stern than he looks, like a new mathematics teacher students instinctually know they do not want to piss off.
“That’s me.”
Any air of authority or expertise he has dissipates as he exhales and deep-knee bends with a celebratory fist pump. “Thank Christ. I’m your ride.” He shakes the hair out of his face and strides into the main thoroughfare running the length of the hospital from the ER entrance across to Central Street on the opposite side of the structure. Staff, security, and two soldiers in camouflage fatigues wash past him without regard. He settles against the far wall, holds up his hands at the height of his head and points down the hallway to their right, his long index fingers flipping up and down, a human directional signal.
Dr. Awolesi and Stephen spill out of the stairwell door. Stephen is walking under his own power, but gingerly, as though each step is a new experience in pain. If he has suffered a wound or physical trauma beyond the electric shock, none are visible. He is not in possession of his Taser gun.
Dr. Awolesi says, “Where did the driver go?” She spies the EMT in the hallway and rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She says to the group, “Quickly now, or they won’t let you out.”
Everyone moves at once. Ramola picks up her pace so as not to be in the rear this time, pulling on Natalie’s arm a little, goosing her forward. Within the wider space of the main hallway is a cacophony of shouts, cries, barked orders and questions, crackling radios, individual voices. Dr. Awolesi sprints ahead. The EMT still points and Ramola can’t help but briefly imagine him as the Wizard of Oz Scarecrow ineffectually directing Yellow Brick Road traffic. He flashes Ramola a crooked smile, perhaps a traitorous one born of shock or nerves, or one that speaks to incompetence and incongruity given the graveness of their situation, or it is a wholly appropriate and commiserative Can you believe this bullshit?
There is no parsing which comes first; the sights and sounds are simultaneous. The EMT’s head jerks to Ramola’s right and toward a garish splash of blood and gray matter scarring the wall. The gunshot crack is followed by a second, or is it a third? He accordions into a boneless, grotesque collapse, his body pooling on the tile. What a world, what a world.
More gunshots, and Ramola instinctively ducks but then straightens, shielding Natalie as much as she can with her slight frame. They drift up against the wall. Dr. Awolesi rushes to the aid of the EMT. The fire alarm changes its rhythm and pattern, from two short blasts to a single protracted one with a heavier weight of silence between, the length of which is almost impossible to anticipate.
A man jogs from the direction of the ER waiting area, indiscriminately firing a pistol. One bullet burrows into the drywall a foot or so above Natalie’s head. Behind him, other people are motionless, huddled or splayed on the tile floor, and Ramola cannot tell if they’re taking cover or have been shot. The man is shaved bald, older, and wears a tight T-shirt that shows off his considerable upper-body musculature. His forward movement slows and he weaves and wavers, weight shifting left and right randomly, as though he’s fighting against hurricane-force winds. The flashing lights blur and muddy his movement.
He fires off more shots without aiming, then he talk-yells, like he’s delivering a sermon. “You want to be a sickle you must bend yourself. I can’t help you. I won’t be burnt with you.”
Instead of sidling away from the man and heading deeper down the hallway, Ramola considers going forward and back into the elevator vestibule, where Stephen crouches and carefully peers around the edge of the hallway. They would be covered but also potentially trapped. The stairs offer no safe exit (Is that boy still there waiting for them on the platform? Is he moments away from opening the fire door?) and she’s unsure if the elevators are operable.
A commotion approaches from the other end of the hallway; clacking boots and shouts of “Stay clear!” Three members of the National Guard in full fatigues: one carrying a gun-metal-colored shield, the other two clutching automatic weapons. They quickly overtake and pass Ramola and Natalie. The soldiers shout unheeded commands at the man, each soldier taking a turn, as though singing in rounds. A hail of gunfire drowns out their infinite canon. The man with the pistol screams and falls to the floor. Most of Ramola’s view is blocked by the circling soldiers, particularly the one with the shield, as the man uses his hands and arms to crawl forward on his stomach, his motionless legs trailing red smears. He hisses and gurgles, and drums his lips together like a child might when imitating a car engine. His bloody, foaming mouth is a leer and he lashes out with a hand, reaching for the ankle of the shield carrier. A single gunshot discharges from one of the soldiers’ guns. The man goes still. After the briefest moments of silence, that end of the hallway explodes into argument and recrimination between approaching medical staff and the soldiers.
Dr. Awolesi has flipped the EMT onto his back. She explores his midsection for a reason Ramola cannot determine. He is most certainly dead; the left half of his head is a sizable trapdoor left ajar, hair and scalp misshapen and jellied with gore. Dr. Awolesi climbs out of her crouch, dangling a set of keys in one hand.
Ramola and Natalie follow the doctor down the hallway, swimming upstream through waves of more soldiers and, now, firefighters. Stephen the guard doesn’t continue with them. He stays behind, leaning on the corner of the elevator vestibule and hallway, talking to soldiers and pointing, presumably, at the door to the stairwell.
Ramola walks side by side with Natalie while looking every direction at once. They do not talk. She tries to catch Natalie’s eye, to give her a nod or a smile, whatever either expression is worth, an opening to perhaps ask the dreaded How are you doing, how are you feeling? Natalie grimly keeps her gaze pointed forward, to the finish line they cannot yet see. Her gait is hitched and her right arm is scaffolding under her stomach. The overnight bag bounces off her hip with each step.
A few paces ahead, Dr. Awolesi talks into her radio. The keys jingle as she gesticulates, flashing her right arm out to her side and pointedly jabbing it forward.
Natalie asks, “Who’s driving us? Is she driving us?”
“I don’t think so. EMTs work with partners, don’t they.” Ramola doesn’t mean it as a question, but as emphasis. “How are—”
“I’m fine.” Her eyes fixed on the hallway horizon, Natalie shakes her head no as though her physically taxed and possibly catastrophically compromised body cannot tell a lie. They pass intersecting hallways and signs with arrows pointing to the ICU, cafeteria, Psychiatry, and the Washington Street entrance, which is closed, and Natalie repeats, “I’m fine.”
The Central Street exit/entrance is a service and employee entrance, one not generally used by patients or visitors under normal circumstances. Two armed and masked soldiers guard the glass double doors.
Dr. Awolesi shows her ID and identifies herself as acting chief medical officer. This is news to Ramola, and her use of “acting” and its implications floods her system with pulses of unease. Dr. Awolesi tells the soldiers, with permission granted by the incident commander, she is transferring Natalie and her attending physician to another clinic.
There is no argument as Ramola anticipated there might be. One soldier nods, says, “We know,” and mumbles something about minutes to spare. The other opens the door and closes it as soon as they pass through. Outside the hospital, the wail of the fire alarm is muzzled (but still audible), and the cool air is
bracing on Ramola’s sweat-slicked skin. The parking lot is significantly smaller than the sea of blacktop by the ER. A skinny rectangle that winds and tapers by the entrance has only thirty or so parking spots for staff, currently filled with military trucks and other vehicles. Two trucks, parked tail to head, block access from Washington Street. Soldiers guard and maintain one-lane access to and from Central Street.
A large white ambulance with the company name writ in blue cursive on the side panel is parked at the walkway curb in front of the exit. Dr. Awolesi jogs ahead and pounds on the passenger door with an open hand and stands on tiptoes, peering into the window. When no one answers, she opens the unlocked door, pulls herself up into the main cab, and visually inspects the rear of the vehicle. She hops back onto the sidewalk, looks around, and throws up her hands.
She says, “This is alarming to admit, but I cannot locate the other EMT. She might be inside helping. But I don’t know, and now it doesn’t matter.” She hands Ramola the fistful of keys she lifted from the dead EMT. “I’m conscripting you into driving, Dr. Sherman.”
Ramola holds the loose pile of jangling metal in her left hand, out and away from her body as though cupping a handful of sleeping bees. “Are you sure . . .”
“Yes, and before you can ask, I have that power. Come on, Natalie, let’s get you in.”
Natalie snorts a hard laugh. “Yeah, why not?”
Dr. Awolesi walks away from the front cab toward the rear.
“I’m not sitting back there all by myself,” Natalie says. “I’m sitting in the front with Ramola. She’ll need my help navigating.”
Dr. Awolesi, speaking for the first time without her air of authority, says she’d feel better having Natalie in the four-point harness in the back and, more sheepishly, something about regulations against patients being up front.
Natalie says, “Right. Well they can sue me later,” and goes to the open passenger door. The two doctors help Natalie step up into the cab. She settles into the chair and allows Dr. Awolesi to fasten her seat belt. Natalie stows her overnight bag on the floor between her feet.
After they shut the door Ramola asks, “Will I be allowed through checkpoints, roadblocks? I’m clearly not the intended driver.”
Dr. Awolesi assures her that the communications team has already sent alerts and will continue to spread the message throughout state and emergency networks.
They walk around the front of the ambulance. Ramola opens the heavy driver’s-side door, which creaks on its hinges, protesting her coming aboard. Part of her wants to say, I cannot do this. This is too much. “Well, I drove a moving van once,” Ramola says aloud, though she’s really talking to herself. She returns the handheld radio to the doctor.
Dr. Awolesi stares at the device and blinks, empty of expression. She says, “Ames Medical Clinic is on Depot Street, right near Five Corners. Do you know where that is?”
Natalie shouts, “Yes!”
Ramola says, “Yes, I do.”
Dr. Awolesi hands Ramola a small card. “My cell-phone number. Calls have been iffy, but texts have a better chance of going through should you need to contact me.” She says the last sentence like a question for which she doesn’t have a proper answer. “Good luck. Not that you’ll need it. I’m sure she’ll be fine but—keep an eye on her.”
Ramola says, “Thank you, Doctor, I will.” She climbs into the cab and stows her bag behind the seat, and mumbles, “While keeping the other eye on the road? Fucking hell.”
Natalie says, “You and your eye will do great. And use both for driving, please.” She now has her bag in her lap and is rooting through it.
“Do you need—”
Natalie doesn’t look up. “No. Nothing. Drive.”
The ambulance’s design more resembles a tall, skinny delivery van than a truck. Other than its dramatically spacious headroom and the center console with its radio and two rows of chunky black buttons or switches, the front’s interior is similar to a typical automobile. Ramola is sunken into the too-large bucket seat that was not designed with the Goldilocks principle in mind. She roughly slides the chair forward until the tops of her knees are almost brushing the steering wheel. Inserting the key, its hard plastic sleeve as thick as her hand, she starts the engine.
Ramola checks her side mirrors, shifts into drive, and rolls away from the curb.
Natalie lets her bag drop between her legs and down to the floor again. She holds her phone with both hands. She says, “I hope someone calls that obstetrician, tells her to go back home,” using her this-is-Nats-being-sarcastic voice, which, at first blush, isn’t perceptibly different from her regular, conversational tone. Instead of employing hammy, exaggerated inflection peppered with head tilts and eye rolls, Natalie holds eye contact, so direct as to make her target self-conscious, and drops into a slightly lower, more serious register, speaking with the hushed wisdom of an expert or authority. It took Ramola years and more than a handful of misunderstandings before she could consistently identify Natalie’s sarcasm. “She’ll be very put out, I imagine, when she shows up and I’m not here. Not to mention the money her police-escorted hospital jaunt will cost the state. What a terrible mess.”
Ramola won’t look at Natalie directly. She needs to concentrate on getting them out of the hospital lot, through downtown Norwood, and pointed in the direction of the clinic before she’ll dare to keep that other eye on Natalie. The questions about symptoms and the increasing possibility of infection will simply have to wait. If she could put those questions off forever, especially now that it’s just the two of them again, she would. Ramola nods as though agreeing with something she said to herself.
The ambulance floats through small but tight turns within the lot, swaying and dipping like a dinghy in choppy waters. Knowing it’s a paranoid thought, Ramola is convinced the ambulance’s high center of gravity is actively conspiring to tip.
Natalie says, “Remember where we parked. Hope we don’t get towed.”
Soldiers remove the white-and-orange-striped sawhorses blocking Central Street. Ramola pauses at the exit, offering a last chance for someone to give her instructions, tell her what to do, what to expect, how any of this is going to work out. A half block to her left, hemmed in by cement barriers, Washington Street boils with activity: police and military herd and direct people away from the hospital; people shout and they honk horns; they wander aimlessly between stopped and abandoned cars, unsure of where to go or what to do; they wave arms and fists but not in a threatening way, instead, it’s a someone-please-see-me-and-help-me plea; everyone’s face shows confusion mixed with terror and incredulity, and perhaps most frightening, an odd look of recognition/resignation, and it’s a look Ramola fears she’ll find on her own face if she stares into the rearview mirror.
Dragging the tail end of the ambulance fully out of the lot, Ramola turns right. Central Street is empty of traffic, the curbs lined by a blockade of military and emergency-response vehicles. Packs of soldiers cluster around individuals attempting to cut across the road and funnel the interlopers back onto Washington Street or Broadway.
A Jeep pulls out ahead of the ambulance, a single flashing red light perched on its roof, and leads them away from the hospital.
Natalie presses one of the console buttons, turning on their own flashing red lights. She says, “No siren. My fucking head is killing me.” She clears her throat twice, and then a third time.
Ramola has the irresistible urge to snap at Natalie, to yell at her, to tell her to stop carrying on like a phlegmatic old man, to say she is exaggerating her headache and the scratchiness of her voice, all of which is making it impossible to drive, to concentrate, to not think and imagine the worst.
They follow the Jeep through a bend, past the post office, past Olivadi’s Restaurant & Bar, and to a straightaway section of the road, and past Norwood Cooperative Bank and Mak’s Roast Beef. Two blocks away is a fire engine, a leviathan floating across Nahatan Street and then up Central. Falling in behind the
red truck wider than the lane it straddles are three coach buses, each one able to accommodate more than fifty passengers.
Natalie asks, “Are they quarantining the hospital or evacuating? Do they even know?”
Ramola shrugs and says, “Come on, let’s keep it moving,” even though no one has stopped the Jeep or their ambulance. They pass between the Norwood Theatre and the green space of Norwood Common. They cross Nahatan Street, where the traffic they were sitting in an hour ago hasn’t abated. They go straight for two more blocks and turn right onto Railroad Avenue. The Jeep pulls over to the shoulder, adjacent to the mostly empty Norwood Depot parking lot, and the driver rolls down his window and waves them on.
Ramola slows the ambulance as though hoping to communicate No, you first. We insist.
Natalie says, “So much for our escort.”
Ramola says, “We’ll be all right,” and regrets it as soon as she says it.
Natalie knocks on the dash. “Pretend it’s wood. That was for you, by the way. Just because you’re not superstitious—”
“Doesn’t mean I want to be a jinx.”
Natalie finishes the punch line, one born of obligation to tradition, but not without warmth. “You are a woman of reason and science.”
A shared joke from one late night when the two of them were at the Brown University Sciences Library studying for freshman first-semester exams. Both were hypercaffeinated, loopy from stress and nearly a week’s worth of lack of sleep, and unabashedly silly and awkward in the way young people are when they are comfortable within their own skin for perhaps the first time in their lives. The study session deteriorated into laughing fits as Ramola loudly shushed and repeatedly knocked on wood whenever either of them speculated on how they would perform the next morning. The following afternoon, celebrating the completion of their exams, the two of them wandered Thayer Street searching for a ladder for Ramola to walk under or a black cat with which to cross paths so she could prove she was not superstitious; she was a woman of reason and science. Being a cold and blustery mid-December there were no cats to be found and the only ladder was the rolling one within stacks at the University bookstore, swollen with students purchasing last-minute holiday gifts. Ramola tried gamely to shimmy between the cranky, clanging ladder and the bookshelf, but got pinned between. She was in nonfiction/history—Ramola remembers the section clearly—her eyes inches from the faced-out cover of The Devil in the White City, a book that Natalie bought her as a cheeky graduation gift. A clearly unamused graduate student working one of the registers had to stand on a chair to detach the top of the ladder from its track in order to free a giggling but mortified Ramola. All the while, Natalie sat on the floor and with the straightest of faces asked Ramola if she needed water or a blueberry muffin from the café. She read aloud from the opening chapter of Into Thin Air until the grad student monotoned that she wasn’t helping.
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